Ford Focus RS Wins "Sporting" Car of the Year Award in Scotland

The Scottish Car of the Year Awards presented by Association of Scottish Motoring Writers (ASMW) have another big winner: Ford Focus RS won the "sporting" category of the competition. The award is even more important, as the RS had serious competition. The short list of eight contenders included the Audi R8 V10, Nissan 370Z, and Volkswagen Golf GTi.

"Ford has a great history with the Scottish Car of the Year awards and once again is a winner with their Focus RS. Its combination of power, poise and affordability makes it a worthy class winner," commented Bill Caven, President of ASMW, while presenting the award.

"The Ford Focus was the winner at the inaugural awards in 1998 and Ford has had winners almost every year, proving that Ford cars deliver what the Scottish market demands," he added.

The award was presented to Ian Slater, Vice-President Communications and Public Affairs for Ford of Europe, which said: "This is great news for the Focus RS and testament to the skill and enthusiasm of our engineers. In such a competitive environment it's great to see performance and value recognised in this way."

The RS badge stands for Rallye Sport, and it represents a high-performance version of the Ford Focus positioned above the ST model within the Focus range. The second generation RS has a Duratec engine which produces 305 PS and 440 Nm of torque. It accelerates from 0 to 100 km/h in under 6 seconds. Despite its power, the car remains front wheel drive, but to reduce torque steer it uses a Quaife Automatic Torque Biasing LSD, and a specially designed MacPherson strut suspension at the front called RevoKnuckle.